Monday, 28 October 2013

Your pupils will look puzzled when they are asked to face east and to hold
on tightly to
something in front of them
as we gradually ascend a very steep roller coaster. We go up and up and up and then scream loudly as we hurtle down the
other side. Whatever is going on? We are demonstrating the speed of
the Earth's spin; in London we are travelling at about 647 miles
per hour (1042 km/h)! On the Equator, the spin-speed is 1,040
mph (1674 km/h). You can calculate the spin-speed where you are by
multiplying 1,674 km/h by the
cosine of your latitude. All this is explained in our new Earthlearningidea 'Screaming roller coaster; how fast am I travelling (due to Earth's spin and Earth's orbit)?This activity is in the 'Earth in Space' category on our website; more will follow.

Monday, 21 October 2013

Have you tried 'Playground planets'? This ELI models the relative sizes of the planets and their distances from the Sun. If the Earth is modelled as a sphere 6mm in diameter, how big is the Sun? (696mm) Using a scale of about 100 billion to 1, if the Earth is 1.5m from the Sun, how far is Neptune? (45m)
This activity can be used in any lesson about space and astronomy. It can also be used in mathematics for work on large numbers and scale.
Visit our website for more activities in our 'Earth in space' category.

Monday, 14 October 2013

This is the second in our water series, 'Mini-world water cycle'. This is a water cycle demonstration model in a transparent box, using materials readily available in the classroom. Brighten up the mini-world by standing it on blue paper to make the ‘sea’ blue, adding a model sunbather with a sun shade to the sandy ‘beach’, and cotton wool to the freezer pack to make fluffy clouds, as in the photo above. But beware – the sunbather will have to leave when it starts to rain!
There are lots more free-to-download activities on our website covering a whole range of Earth-related topics

Monday, 7 October 2013

Following last week's post, a reader has sent in the following suggestion for an extension to the original ELI, 'Volcano in the lab!'
"This year I combined this ELI with ‘Partial Melting’ and created a mixed layer of pebbles and wax below the sand. Students were thus able to see that it is not necessary to have a completely molten layer to generate magmas.
Several phenomena we observed this year included, small puffs of ‘magma’ rising from the vent, so we ended up with small balls of wax floating on the water. The other larger vent demonstrated a rather complex intrusive body beneath the surface flow."We will always publish any good ideas you send to us so keep them coming please!Send toinfo@earthlearningidea.com

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About Earth Learning Idea

ELI is publishing FREE Earth-related teaching ideas, designed to be practical resources for teachers and teacher-trainers all over the world.We publish new Earth Learning Ideas every two weeks. Some of these activities require the use of some basic school laboratory equipment and some include abstract ideas. We label these activities ELI+. Each activity is designed to create pupil participation for maximum learning.All activities are free to download and most require minimal cost and equipment. Best of all, they are fun!